James Kirkup is The Telegraph's Executive Editor (Politics). He was previously the Telegraph's Political Editor and has worked at Westminster since 2001.

Evening Briefing: Boris, Vince, and immigration

This is from the Telegraph Politics Evening Briefing, available free to anyone who wants it. Just click here to sign up.

BREAKING NEWS

Oh, the modern world. George Osborne has just announced a change in tax laws he says will stop energy companies "double claiming" at the expense of small businesses. And he's done it on Twitter:

Some utility firms are double claiming: charging small businesses & claiming tax back. Am changing law to stop that http://bit.ly/133bgN7

Apparently,several hundred million pounds of public money are involved. We'll have more on Telegraph Politics soon.
UNHOLY ALLIANCE

Boris Johnson and Vince Cable don't agree on much, but they both took shots at David Cameron over immigration today. Addressing the same university leaders' conference in Whitehall, the Mayor and the Business Secretary said that immigration curbs that have reduced the number of foreign students coming the UK are a Bad Thing.

Once, Tim Yeo was at the vanguard of Conservative greenery, urging his party to embrace environmental causes and deriding "deniers". He's still a big cheese in environmental terms: chairman of the Commons select committee on climate change, no less. So the fact that he's suggested that climate change may not be happening because of human activity may ruffle some feathers.

Boris doesn't want David Camron to fail miserably. Or in any other way, come to that. Rejecting the "impeccable" counsel of Andy Coulson, the London Mayor has insisted he is "increasingly confident" that the PM will manage to win the next election. Just as Mr Cameron is no doubt increasingly relaxed about his fellow Etonian's ongoing efforts to find a way of stopping just short of giving him complete support.

Philip Hammond has gently cautioned David Cameron and George Osborne against pushing too hard for cuts in the defence budget. "Efficiencies" are fine, he says, but cut any deeper and you jeopardise military capability, he says. Translation: cut my budget and I sack more soldiers. Is that really what you want, Prime Minister?

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development entered the Spending Review debate, telling the Coalition to abandon "ringfence" protection for the NHS budget. The committment is skewing spending and means unduly deep cuts elsewhere, the OECD thinks.

Politicians like to complain that political journalists focus too much on personality and not enough on policy. Today, Downing Street would probably prefer us to look at the Boris vs Dave soap opera than look too closely at immigration policy.

The Conservative pledge to cut net immigration to "tens of thousands" is a cornerstone of Tory planning for 2015, a weapon to wield against Labour, and a shield against Ukip attacks on the issue.

So last week, when official figures suggested that immigration is coming down steadily, possibly even enough to hit that target, Tories were jubiliant. Yet the devil was in the detail: much of the reduction came from the higher education sector, as footloose foreigners chose to study in places other than the UK.

That, many people think, is a bad thing. Foreign students pay top dollar for UK degrees, and they often hang around afterwards, lending their enhanced skills to UK plc. Boris Johnson and Vince Cable are among those people, and have said so today.

Public opinion about immigration is complex. Some voters don't want any immigration at all. For them, any fall in net arrivals is a good thing. But others differentiate between groups of immigrants. For them, some newcomers (those who have valuable skills) are to be welcomed and others (who do not) should be turned away.

Will today's contributions persuade the Prime Minister and friends to change their policy on immigration? No. But they may just increase the number of people who look into the detail of the Coalition's record on immigration and conclude that meeting that all-important promise may involve some smoke and mirrors, and a focus on the wrong group of immigrants. At a time when trust in political promises is painfully low, that's no small thing.
WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

I was employed in the NHS nearly 30 years ago and remember attending briefings which predicted all the elements of the current crisis. What we needed in the 80s was to agree what the NHS does and what we are prepared to pay for. That never happened.

FURTHER READING

Jacob Rees-Mogg uses his Telegraph Politics weekly column to offer some thoughts on Nick Clegg, Coalition politcs, and Disraeli. A must-read, as ever.

George Freeman says there is a Conservative case for international aid, if only his party would make it. Give that man a job, Dave.

Mark Ferguson asks about the Labour plan to deal with Ukip. His conclusion: "It’s not clear yet that there is one."

TOMORROW

The UN High Level Panel on development after 2015 reports in New York. David Cameron is a member of the panel, but he's chillaxing in Ibiza, so Justine Greening gets to stand in for him. She must be thrilled.